Thursday, November 09, 2017 1:00 am

Pence to talk tax reform in state visit

BRIAN FRANCISCO | The Journal Gazette

Vice President Mike Pence will return to his home state this afternoon to try to drum up support for an overhaul of the U.S. income tax code.

The White House said the former Indiana governor and congressman will participate in a roundtable discussion and deliver remarks at TKO Graphix in Plainfield, a western suburb of Indianapolis. Pence will be joined by Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta and Gov. Eric Holcomb, who had been Pence's lieutenant governor.

Pence visited Anderson on Sept. 22 to urge Hoosiers and their government representatives to back what were then unspecified revisions to the tax code. At the time, he said President Donald Trump “is going to sign, before the end of this year, a tax cut that will put American workers and the American economy first.”

A week later, Trump visited Indianapolis to tout tax cuts in general.

Pence, Trump and tax revision advocates have targeted Indiana in an attempt to put pressure on Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., a political moderate who occasionally votes with Republicans and who stands for re-election next year in a state Trump carried by 19 percentage points in the 2016 election.

A few centrist Democrats including Donnelly are seen as key votes in the event the Senate Republican caucus fractures as it did during unsuccessful votes to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.